


Monsoon

by AnnyFay



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Rush (2013)
Genre: Drug Use, Formula 1, Formula One, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Launt, M/M, Oral Sex, Songfic, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:32:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9802757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnyFay/pseuds/AnnyFay
Summary: There is a piano just to his right. He wonders if she will ever ask him to play something for her as part of a psycho-test. He hopes not.“We’ve known each other for a while now, and he says he’s on vacation here in Marbella, but I doubt that. He wants to make sure I’m okay.”“Because of Ronnie?”James nods.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't stop writing about these two and there are so many other plots I want to test on them and omg
> 
> So this one is about F1 hiatus after the 1978 season (which is when Ronnie Peterson died) and James is not doing well.
> 
> It was inspired by the song Monsoon - Hippo Campus. These guys are amazing and this song tears my heart into pieces every time I listen to it.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

“You’ve been sleeping poorly.”

James comes to the conclusion Dr. Higginson is surely thinking he’s been having nightmares and has been crying all night long.

“Life in Marbella is not exactly a daytime thing.”

“How come?”

He hates it when she pretends not to know what he is talking about just so he has to speak it out loud and realise how fucked up it sounds.

“I don’t need to tell you, doctor. I’m in every important newspaper’s front page.”

“I assume you like it.” She crosses one leg over the other for the fiftieth time since they began the session.

“Well… it’s not that bad.”

But James keeps playing with his fingers and avoids making eye contact with her. He is utterly annoyed when she writes a paragraph or two on her bright yellow notebook.

“Are you afraid of being alone? All these parties, the nightclubs… is it because you’re not prepared to be on your own and think about what you’ve been through?”

“What I’ve been through?” James hisses at her constant frown of interrogation. “Like what?”

“You tell me. You were the one who sought help.” Dr. Higginson throws back at him. Hunt wants to walk away, wants to punch his own face because yes, of course he isn’t being forced to be there. So why is it so difficult to leave?

“Why did you want to come in the first place?”

“Because Niki asked me to.”

“And why did he do that?”

There are some portraits scattered throughout Dr. Higginson’s desk. Hunt’s eyes wander by the pictures of her husband, son and their two dogs. The simplicity of their lives helps James put his mind at ease.

“I got into a fight last week and accidentally punched him when he stepped in. I felt so bad afterwards, and I did try to apologise… but Niki didn’t want to hear it. He said if I wanted to make it up to him I should get some professional help.”

The curtains of her office are green, which fits perfectly with the beige couch and the dark brown carpet.

“So you care about your friendship with him.”

“Yes, of course I do. I owe him everything.” James’ answer is nearly automatic. The intensity of the statement frightens him, yet he prefers not to show her any contradictory emotion.

“How so?”

There is a piano just to his right. He wonders if she will ever ask him to play something for her as part of a psycho-test. He hopes not.

“We’ve known each other for a while now, and he says he’s on vacation here in Marbella, but I doubt that. He wants to make sure I’m okay.”

“Because of Ronnie?”

James nods.

 

~

 

“Niki, hey!” James boosts his jogging rhythm to catch up with a certain Austrian who is seen exiting a restaurant about two blocks from James’ house by the beach. Niki turns around and seems rather surprised to meet the other with his German Shepherd, Oscar, in such a good mood. “Hi, hm, I was thinking if you’d like to grab a drink with me tonight.”

“No party at your yacht today?” His sceptical tone of voice touches a nerve.

“Dr. Higginson said I should go easy on it.”

“And what would she say about us getting drunk?”

It is a cold day in Marbella. The sun is showing up, but it only warms the skin enough to make it pleasant going out and appreciating the vividness of the Spanish city.

“I have no intention of getting drunk, Niki. It may not seem like it, but I know how to behave myself.”

Niki shrugs. He does it so often the action already lost its meaning.

“Well, I have every intention of getting hammered tonight.”

 

~

 

“Do you think I should retire?” Niki pours an extreme douse of tequila in his glass and James fears this was an awful idea.

“Of course not. Who else will I bother?”

The bar is nice and quiet. There are bizarre paintings on the wall, like that of a face without eyes and wide, distorted mouth.

“You should retire.” Drunk Niki is more sincere and vaguer than sober Niki, which James finds hard to believe. He swallows those words like thorns.

“I know.”

The Austrian was not kidding when he confided James it has been a tough week and he was in need of getting wasted. Hunt is not exactly disappointed with that, he must admit. Looking after Niki is enough motivation to keep him sober the rest of the night.

“We’ve been old for so long” Niki swings his glass in front of his eyes, pondering for a while. With a gesture, he is asking for one more round.

“You’re not even thirty, don’t be stupid.”  

“Ronnie was thirty-four.”

James understands Niki’s point so precisely. They feel too old, and Ronnie was too young.

“Ok, I think it’s time to go home.”

There are three things James Hunt would never tell you.

The first one is that he loathed Hesketh and never really cared about their team, it was a joke anyway. The second one is that he almost retired from the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix just so Niki could win his second championship, because what good did that trophy do on his hands?

The third one is that he carried Niki back to his beach house that night, mostly because Dr. Higginson was absolutely right and he could not stand being left alone with every one of his fears eating him from the inside out.

They arrive. James turns around to lock the door they have just walked in.

“There are more beds in this house than chairs, so…”

He turns back, and Niki has come closer than he wished. The Austrian grabs him by the shirt and smacks their mouths together. James’ eyes stay opened for a second too long, but Niki presses him against the door and he has to secure him by the shoulder just to make sure things will not get out of hand – but they are.

James does not back off. He has waited for it for ages without really saying it out loud. He has silently fed hopes he can no longer control.

He feels the bruise upon Niki’s lips from last week’s fight. Hunt has almost forgotten how to ignore his scars since he gifted him one more.

Niki is the one who pulls them apart.

“Night, Shunt.”

 

~

 

“Where did you go?”

Dr. Higginson sits across him on her casual velveteen armchair. She dyed her golden locks a vivid copper colour and James wants to tell her she looks pretty, but it is probably a terrible idea.

“What do you mean?”

“Your mind was somewhere. I’d like to discuss where it went.”

Her office is next to her own house, like she has just built a wall to separate the two of them. It has the same atmosphere as any other house in Marbella, screaming luxury and everlasting summer. It sits at the bottom of a hill, a few miles from the centre of the city, the crowded beaches and busy Marina.

“I went out with Niki last night.”

It is so easy to tell her things James is ashamed to admit to himself.

“And he kissed me.”

The clock on the wall is a conventional white, round clock. Nothing special besides its hands, which have the shape of little hummingbirds.

“He was drunk.”

“But you weren’t?” She is looking at him over her tortoiseshell glasses, analyzing his smallest reactions.

“It just felt right, like we’ve seen it coming.”

Dr. Higginson is the quietest person he has ever met. Her job is basically to make her patients confess their deepest feelings and let them sink into deadly silence.

“I don’t know how I’ll get back there. I’m afraid he won’t remember it, or that he didn’t mean it to happen...”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Niki has always been there for you, hasn’t he?”

There’s a tree in front of her office. Its branches can almost enter the room through the window. When the wind blows, they scratch the glass and the sound is excruciating.

“I wasn’t there for him when he needed the most.”

When he left the house, Niki was still asleep on the couch because he couldn’t make it to the bedrooms upstairs.

 “So you think you don’t deserve his friendship?”

James remembers the first time they crossed path in Formula Three. Niki was every bit as a newbie as Hunt was, but he walked through the paddock area like he owned it, like he knew exactly what he was doing. And James never doubted that.

“I don’t deserve being at the receiving end of everything that he is.” *

 

~

 

He finds Niki sitting at one of the stools placed in front of the kitchen’s counter. He has his face hidden between his hands and a mug filled up with coffee next to him. No one can drink that much without facing any consequences.

“Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Shut up, _Scheißkopf_ ”

Oscar comes running from somewhere in the backyard. James pats his head for a while and sits across Niki. He almost wants to touch his arm. _Almost_.

“Did you go see Dr. Higginson?”

“Yes”

“Did you talk about me?”

He stands up and goes to the fridge behind Niki, figuring out the other didn’t have the stomach to eat anything until then. He decides to make them some ham sandwiches because it is the only thing he can find among beer cans and bottles of whiskey.

“I remember.”

James freezes, his feet turn into solid blocks of lead.

“And I thought we could finish what we started last night.”

James turns around. Niki is standing up looking at him, looking through him. Hunt comes closer, so close he can see the lines, turquoise diamonds entangled with each other in Niki’s blue eyes. They are so dazzlingly beautiful and James never paid much attention to them.

He narrows the gap between them, places one hand on the other’s hips. Niki gets on the counter, wraps his legs around James’ waist. They breathe in each other’s mouth, mess each other’s hair. James’ crotch rubs against Niki’s, and that’s when he hears a moaning. It’s not out of pleasure, but sickness.

“After lunch.” James mutters.

Niki agrees.

 

James has fucked so many people on that bed. None of the times he can recall were as intense as it is with Niki. He runs his fingers through the blond’s back and scratches the sweaty skin when in need of _more_. James buries his face on the curve of Niki’s neck and thrusts relentlessly whilst sucking on his earlobe.

The Sun goes down, sets itself to sleep in the horizon within the wide window in the corner of James’ bedroom. Hours pass, life is pretty much incredible.

James looks at Niki, who is lying on his back next to him. They share a profound, glaring gaze.

“Did you seriously wait for me to come back so we could fuck?”

“No, arsehole. You locked me in here.”

 

~

 

_Smoke blurs his sight._

_James rushes to rescue Ronnie. He’s safe. Hunt is there, he is there this time. Suddenly, Niki’s accident doesn’t seem so regretful anymore. James senses it happened for a reason, so he could save Ronnie in time, so he could do the right thing finally._

_But that’s not it. It’s a mistake and it keeps happening around him. He’s not able to save anyone, yet he keeps trying._

_“Don’t look, mate. They’ll fix it.” He’s telling Peterson who keeps glancing at his terribly injured legs. He is in pain, but pain is always endurable. As long as he is in pain, he is alive._

_No one comes to their rescue. James feels so helplessly alone even when there’s a crowd shouting at them from every direction, a confusion of police officers and marshals. But Dr. Watkins can’t get through this mess, so what’s the point?_

_He has no reason to feel desperate. Ronnie is awake, he is talking and Hunt should not demonstrate fear and cause him further distress. He is still trying to figure out what happened, but it only makes him feel more anxious. James wishes Niki were there; he is his reasoning, the one who always has something to say when every other person’s reaction would be screaming._

_Niki carries the coffin too. James cannot guess what is going through his head at the moment. They don’t comfort each other, they don’t talk at all._

_Don’t look, mate. They’ll fix it._

He wakes up. Niki has returned to the hotel. He can still smell the smoke. It’s not something you can forget.

James thinks a cold shower will help the flames wear off from his body. He almost freezes to death, but the nightmare is finally gone.

 

It is four in the morning. Niki wakes up with the telephone ringing on his head. _Schei_ _ße_.

He can barely answer it, but when he does, he wishes he had just thrown it at the wall.

“Niki? Niki? Niki are you there? Can’t hear you.” James shouts. Niki moves the phone away from his ear until he is able to actually understand what is going on.

“You would if you just stopped screaming, idiot.”

“There you are! Niki, I need your help. I went to a party and I think I lost my keys and now I can’t get into my house, can you believe that?!”

Niki sighs, facepalms himself.

“Do I look like a locksmith to you? Break a window, go back to that fucking party and try to find your keys, I don’t care.”

“I don’t know any locksmith in Marbella, let alone one that’s working right now.”

 _Yes, because they are sleeping. Because people are sleeping at four in the morning and not talking over the phone with their drunk as fuck fellow driver._ Niki takes two deep breaths. He stares at the ceiling seeking enlightenment, but James is humming a song and he can’t bloody concentrate.

“Fine, Hunt. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Niki was not planning on actually helping James. He can think of approximately ten reasons he’d better go back to bed, but he cannot fathom the decision of hanging James out to dry.

“Hey ratty! Come ladies, our prince on a white horse answered our call!”

Needless to say Niki walks like a penguin in the night’s cold gale with his anorak jacket over the pyjamas. He feels stupid, naive. Hunt has two women hanging around his neck. The redhead keeps giggling, stumbling on her own feet. The brunette with short hair keeps pulling James by the belt. Niki is having none of it.

He asks roughly for a hairpin, and is handed one immediately – he doesn’t bother to know by whom.

Three clicks. He bends it masterfully, pushes it through the keyhole and smoothly opens the door. The action takes less than five minutes and leaves James with a blank expression on his face.

“Who would’ve thought?! Was this how you got into Ferrari?” Oscar runs past them, savouring the temporary freedom. Hunt walks towards Niki, gives him a tender peck on the lips and goes inside the house, followed by the two women.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. The sound of waves breaking upon the shore is almost indiscernible from the swish of leaves on the trees.

“He is your German friend that got his face screwed by an accident?” The redhead has a latent accent. She shows her teeth way too much. “He can join us.”

“I’m Austrian” is all Niki can manage to gasp.

He shivers as a blast of cold passes through them, shaking the nearby trees’ branches and producing a series of crackling noises.

“Send them away, Hunt”. His authoritarian tone tells James he’s not supposed to argue about it.

There is an exchange of glances between the four of them. The Brit chuckles, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Sorry, ladies. I’m afraid the night must come to an end.” James is looking at him, devouring him with tipsy eyes, glossy smile.

The red-haired stops laughing as if someone has just started strangling her. They have an astonished look on their faces. Rejection is not something they are used to. The brunette walks past them, murmuring _maricón_ and other unidentified, not so polite, Spanish words. The other one follows her down the street.

 “I’m going back to the hotel.” Niki finally directs his attention back to James.

“What the hell?! You said I should ditch them!”

James is standing right in front of him, pursed lips and dilated pupils.

“You should, and I’m leaving.”

Niki takes two steps away, and then stops.

“We never talked about how it was going to be. Just don’t call me at four in the morning ever again.”

He resumes his walking back to the hotel.

 

~

 

“You’ve been sleeping poorly.”

James can’t laugh this time. He can’t give her an ironic look or an impish smile. He keeps staring at Dr. Higginson’s new acquisition: a large aquarium filled with guppy fishes and corals.

“I asked you to try maintaining a more dosed quantity of parties in your spare time. Life is about balancing pretty much everything.”

“Can’t sleep. Nightmares… a bunch of them.” He is not making sense. The words spilled from his mouth are disconnected, but hangover is having the best of it.

Niki hasn’t talked to him since that night. It’s been a week and James doesn’t feel like going to parties that much any longer, so he spends his days at home, alone and disturbed by thoughts he has been trying to get rid of by sedating himself with drugs and alcohol.

“Would you like me to prescribe something to you?”

He didn’t take the Austrian for the jealous type, but it would be presumptuous to think that. Niki may be just utterly tired of James’ behaviour towards practically everything.

“James?”

He is looking at his flip-flops. Dr. Higginson’s voice is far away, indiscernible among the other voices.

_There’s been a crash._

_Not again._

_Who was it?_

_He stayed for about a minute stuck in the car._

_You guys took him off real quick. You may have saved his life._

_I’m terribly sorry. He didn’t make it._

“James, look at me.” Her glasses slide slightly to the edge of her dainty nose. “You said Niki came to Marbella to make sure you were okay after Ronnie’s death, but we never talked about the crash.”

He sighs, looking extremely old and tired.

“It happened. It happens a lot in my profession.”

She tilts her head and frowns. This is her way of saying he’s being thoroughly analyzed.

“But you were there, James. Your car hit his. You were one of the last persons to see him alive. There’ll come a day when you’ll have to deal with it.”

James closes his eyes, presses his lips against one another. He doesn’t respond, so they stay in silence for some poignant seconds.

“What about Niki’s accident?”

Suzy used to say James only cared about what he could take advantage of; the extent of his thoughts could only reach what influenced him somehow. As soon as things got out of his way, he would consider them irrelevant. She was interesting, a rare figure. He fell in love with her as quick as he got over her. It is true, James knows it. He was amazed by the actress, but soon boredom took over his feelings for her.

“When the race restarted, they didn’t want to tell us who had crashed. I was so focused, so determined to win… and when I did, I waited for Niki to join me at the podium. I was excited to shout at him sarcastically that we should have cancelled the race, but he never showed up.”

 _There’s been a crash, Hunt. A serious one for what I’ve heard._ Jochen Mass tells him when they get themselves out of the cars and James is inebriated by the win.

 _Fucking rat, always right_. He thinks straightaway. No matter who crashed, Niki did tell them it would happen. The Austrian always tells Hunt stuff and he ignores it. That’s the whole Niki  & James situation, nothing new under the Sun.

Dr. Higginson mutters something. Their time is up anyway.

 

~

 

Niki is there.

James doesn't think it's a good idea asking him why, he just accepts his company. They order Chinese food and sit next to each other on the couch. Words flow quite sparsely at first, then James has one of his brilliant, prize worthy ideas:

"Have you ever been high?"

The look Niki throws at him makes it instantly ten times funnier.

"High, like what?"

James lets a dry laugh slide from his lips. He is so amazed by the Austrian's naivety, so puzzled by the intense desire he has on corrupting it. Hunt stands up quite excited and disappears for a second or two, returning with two joints between his fingers.

Niki throws his head back. He used to find James smoking pot in their flat pretty frequently. They didn't have the intimacy they have now, so James never invited Niki to join him. Niki never asked to.

"Whatever. What happens in Marbella stays in Marbella." The Austrian almost smiles.

They spend the whole afternoon watching the Addams Family and laughing at each and every common tweet James' birds make.

Hours after, James feels in need of his daily self-indulgence douse.

“I’m so sorry, Niki, that I didn’t visit you at the hospital, I’m so fucking s…”

“It wasn’t your duty.” The Austrian’s accent always deepens when he’s having a hard time finding empathy. “Shit happens and it has nothing to do with you.”

The Sun starts melting away, but they don't move. When James starts talking again, he has a resigned, less depressed and slightly ironic tone of voice.

“I crashed into Ronnie. I’ll never forgive myself for that. And you said Nürburgring was dangerous…”

“And I raced anyway. I didn’t listen to my own advice just like you didn't, but I was expecting you wouldn’t.”

James is looking at him, and Niki is staring at the screen as though his eyes are paralyzed. He is aware of the other's gaze, of the way his hand descends through his arms and down to his lap. Niki nearly wants to stop it, nearly.

“I didn’t tell that woman your face got screwed… I like your face. It’s yours.”

“James, my face is screwed. End of story. Don’t need it to drive whatsoever.”

All of a sudden James is kneeling in front of him, between his legs.

“I’m trying to make myself feel better, can you just play along with that?”

He is fast with unzipping the other's pants, putting his underwear aside and grabbing his cock. Niki is trying to say something, but it's all lost in a gasp as James takes it fully into his mouth.

He stutters the blond's name, but can't pronounce it perfectly. He gives in, lets James suck him off until he is trembling, holding his golden locks just to make sure he won't move away. Niki pants, moans uncontrollably and loses it for a second. James holds both his hands against the couch’s rough fabric, kisses his mouth and devours his lips so Niki can taste his own savour.

“I think we shouldn’t have sex every time we feel like killing each other.” James whispers when moving on top of Niki and laying the other over the couch.

“So don’t think.” It’s a voiceless reply, a desperate one.

“Fuck” James cries as he pushes himself into Niki.

The Austrian runs his fingers through James’ chest. They lock eyes as the blond thrusts arrythmically, tirelessly.

James lifts Niki onto his lap. The Austrian is eager to continue the action, but Hunt rests a hand on his face and forces him to look into his eyes.

“You’re beautiful” James says.

It must be the drugs. It must be Marbella’s atmosphere which turns everything into fairytales and goose bumps. Niki doesn’t want to hear it; he won’t be able to stand it if it gets too personal because he knows how fragile he can be. Niki knows he could deal with burnt lungs, but he certainly can’t deal with misguided feelings. He endured the excruciating pain of getting his facial healing skin ripped off along with the bandages several times. He still, however, considers himself fragile as hell.

When James tells him he is beautiful, Niki pushes himself down on him and shuts him up with moans and pleads.

 

~

 

“I’m glad that you’re happy.”

Dr. Higginson has always a bland expression on her face, but it’s impossible not to feel her empathy or tenderness.

“How was your week?” She asks carefully.

James smirks, his eyes lighten up.

He doesn’t want to sound foolish, but he wants to tell her Niki made them Goulash ( _Wiener Saftgulasch)_ because it’s a traditional dish from Austria and it tasted wrong – just wrong -, but they ate anyway; they stayed in bed cuddling and laughing at old jokes that weren’t even funny anymore, and Niki didn’t leave the next day, or the day after that. Instead, they took Oscar for a walk by the beach and Niki kissed him – they were neither drunk nor high. And since then, he hasn’t had a single nightmare.

But he’s not in love, so he replies “good” and that’s it.

It doesn’t sound quite right coming from his mouth. For months James has lived in hell, doing everything – from intense fuck to all sorts of drug use – just to feel numb inside because he wouldn’t stand the pain if it ever came. But now he feels… fine. He has Niki – even though he can’t exactly say they are a thing -, and his feelings are somewhat good ones. Yet, Ronnie is dead and this will never change.

Winter is coming to an end, and with it, their sessions in Marbella. Their last one feels like emerging from a deep dive.

“You feel like you’re letting it go, and that it’s not right. You’re feeling guilty because you’re moving on instead of grieving all the time. But the fact, James, is that mourning a friend’s death is not necessarily grieving their passing. Sometimes healing is a kind of mourn.”

It’s the last advice she gives him.

 

~

 

Niki is playing with Oscar.

Niki is throwing his Frisbee and high-fiving him when he brings it back and giving him snacks and shouting _fein gemacht!_ and not even caring James is still standing at the threshold, petrified.

They may not be able to keep this up so nicely once the new season starts. James ponders a myriad of times asking him if he would consider retiring so they could live in Marbella, safe and together. He’s not in love, no. It’s just that Niki is fun to hang around and Oscar is having quite a blast. James says nothing, though.

They both know the beauty in life is not getting what you need when you need it.

**Author's Note:**

> * This is a phrase from 8-bitfiction. I love all their posts and couldn't resist putting one of them in this story.


End file.
